性教育 – 香港與波蘭的差別 – sexual education – Poland vs Hong Kong

Whenever I feel down or I need to cheer myself up I think about the best joke ever – sexual education.

I know, why all of the sudden such a topic? Well, because from time to time I hear the ‘golden thoughts’ Sing has and wonder how on earth his parents even knew how to conceive him. And I laugh the crap out of myself.
Then recently I realized the way I encountered ‘adult education’ wasn’t really better. But let’s get to the beginning.

Poland

When I was in my last grade of primary school, the Ministry of Education decided to make a class called ‘Przygotowanie do życia w rodzinie’ – literally ‘Preparation for family life’. It wasn’t only the so called ‘sex-ed’, but it was also a class where you learn about family values, how to be a responsible parent etc., etc.

What I remember till today from those classes? It haunts me till today – sorry for the description – long tampon that looked like a arm-long dildo. I swear to you, no spider ever, no 3-month-long Momzilla stay, made me as scared as that thing. Now you have those teeny-weeny lady’s products but imagine an 11-12 year old girl seeing that monster. NOPE, NOPE, NOPE, NOPE, NOPE, NOPE, NOPE, NOPE, NOPE, NOPE.

The movies we watched were made probably in 70s or 80s and they had that awful dub. If you’re from outside of Poland you probably never seen anything like Polish dub – you can hear the original language in the background and you hear that manly, emotionless voice reading Polish translation.

‘Give your husband proof of love’

If you think I was unlucky, think of those who had that subject with a priest or a nun. Yes, you read it correctly. According to studies from 2009, almost 40% of ‘PDZWR’ is taught by a ‘church person’. A person with no sex life and technically no family – a lot of them put their personal believes into the subject and then you have teen pregnancies that came out as the result of ‘the calendar method approved by church’. Don’t get me wrong, I believe in God, I just love the newest Pope, but that kind of thing should be taught by a biology teacher or someone who is a bit qualified to do that.

Now you might say ‘It’s parents’ responsibility to educate the child’. Let me tell you how it looked at my home.
When I was a little girl my mom told me that I was brought by a stork or that I was found in a cabbage.
Then she always added ‘But that where you find normal babies, I found you in a barrel full of sauerkraut when I wanted to make bigos’.
When I hit the puberty I already knew what sex is but no one bothered to have ‘the talk’. Once there was an adult scene in the movie I watched with my parents and my mom said with a mouth full of chips ‘That’s sex’.
At the age of 16 my dad decided to have ‘the bee and flower’ talk. It looked like that:

Dad: Don’t get pregnant.Me: (awkward silence)Dad: (goes out of the room).

Well, at least looking at me you know that fear is quite good form of birth control because even after marriage there’s no baby. I hope in future I will have a better ‘talk’ than my dad had.
And that’s pretty much my experience in Poland as a student in ‘adult education’ class. Not what you expected, huh?

Hong Kong

The situation with Hong Kong is even funnier (or sadder). In parents’ mind sex doesn’t exist – their precious little Princes and Princesses are a gift from heaven and that what you tell them when they ask you.
Recently there was a pretty famous case when a pregnant teacher let the kids in her class touch her belly and the parents went all bat-shit-crazy because in their mind the teacher was ‘exposing the children to the concept of sex and pregnancy at a young age.’ There are so many ways to describe the miracle of pregnancy and birth in a children-friendly way, rather than straight sex talk, but probably as a not-a-parent-yet you might think I shouldn’t have my opinion on this topic.

But the fact is, Hong Kong’s sex education is terrible. Not only from the parents but also from school.
I mentioned Sing’s golden thoughts – I swear to you, until he was 16 he thought the intercourse happens when man puts his ‘thing’ into woman’s belly button. Later on he though it’s mons pubis. How on Earth he thought about it, there’s no hole there. And if I ask him what he learnt in his sex-ed class he says he can’t remember. Surely he didn’t learn woman’s anatomy.FYI, my belly button is fine.

How does the sexual education look at Sing’s house? His father pretends the topic doesn’t exist. Momzilla was in charge to do so. And it was hilarious (and pretty sexist as well).

When Sing went to Australia and later on moved to America she kept telling him ‘Find girls, have fun, just don’t make babies‘ (she forgot to tell those girls to have fun with Sing so he end up being a single guy until his 20s). Even now since we are married she tells him quite straight forward ‘Have fun, make babies‘.
I guess she thought AVs will do the job for her. Or Sing’s milkshake will bring all the girls to the yard.

For Sing’s sister, who is in my age, she used ‘I-have-a-daughter-answer-model’. When she start growing up she told her not to have a boyfriend. Boyfriend means holding hands and holding hands means pregnancy. And you die from pregnancy like that girl in Twilight (Why do I know that?).
She kept saying that until Sing and I got married, and since our wedding day keeps asking ‘When will you marry and have babies’. Because in that gap of X years when she was asked not to have a boyfriend she found a future husband who is ready to marry when Momzilla says it’s the right time. And sadly this isn’t common for girls – I talked to our female friends and they heard the same thing.

In conclusion, I guess in a more conservative societies like Poland or Hong Kong, sex-education is on a pretty low level. It needs to be changed, but it doesn’t mean it will make young people more curious. I think they will be more curious about the things they don’t know than when they know all the consequences etc., etc.Sexuality in relationship is a beautiful thing and it can be introduced in a beautiful way, rather than pretending nothing happened or having someone who will misguide the youngsters.

What do you think about this topic? How it looks in your case, in your country? Did you have any funny situation or heard some other ‘golden thoughts’?
PS Sing’s recent golden thought – I showed him cute babies on Instagram and he said ‘It’s proof they had sex’ accompanied with awkward silence afterwards. 😀

Cool topic, never had sex ed as a kid in China. At least back in the actual communist days before the ’91 it didn’t exist. I had mine in the U.S. and it was in NY, pretty liberal open state where nothing was a secret. I like that in Polska they teach the values too.

Well, in my country, sexual education is even lower. We were told nothing about this in school and same with my parents, they’re still avoiding this topic (even though I know more about it than they do :D).
Oh wait..actually, in school someone told us about tampons and that’s all. :))

This topic is being hotly discussed right now in my area because the grade schools in British Columbia have upgraded the contents of their sex education classes. Among other things, children are being taught about same sex couples. I guess we’re fairly progressive compared to the examples you have provided. Also, importantly, as was pointed out in one talk by a female sex educator, in this age of internet pornography it’s highly irresponsible to leave kids in the dark about sex, given that most children will first encounter sex online. Children need to be taught about what is real, respectful, loving sex.

I’m an Irish/Australian living in Viet Nam and we have the highest rate of abortion in Asia. Part of the reason it is so high is because Vietnamese kids don’t have access to sexual education, or stigma-free contraception, etc.
It’s really sad.

Haha, this post just made me laugh 😛 I showed it to D and he laughed too.

When I was in the first grade, I thought sex was when adults jumped on the bed naked and just went “oooooooo” LOL. And let’s not forget that I called a ‘condom’ a ‘combom.’

I got the sex ed talk in the 7th grade- despite me knowing a lot already (thank you, Google! LOL). It was awkward as anything. Our teacher put a condom on a cucumber… She also told us that giving birth is like “crapping out a watermelon” 😮 Needless to say I was left traumatized.

I went to a Catholic school in the 9th grade and they made us go on a week-long school trip where we learned about sex. They tried forcing me to sign a petition to stay a virgin until I was married… and they showed us how an abortion takes place. I was left scarred from that week… Thankfully I am over it now 😛

If it makes you feel any better, Derek loves grabbing my boobs and there’s a look of confusion every time as to why milk isn’t coming out XD.

Your experience seems traumatizing! I was pretty traumatized by videos in my US sex ed classes. I asked to be excused during the live birth video. I was terrified by everything I learned there! My parents didn’t talk about it either , they seemed to have the Chinese view (although they are American and not Chinese). I think that sex ed in most countries needs to be revised so that children actually understand what it is before they are expected to go out and do it as adults! It’s a miracle that children are even born since people have such strange ideas about teaching sex ed…

I think we had sex-ed in sixth grade. I don’t remember much (well I practically remember anything till tenth grade) but we were basically shown how everything works, the different kind of protections and whatnot all. Sure it was ‘funny’ and stuff but hey, we were like eleven years old at that time 🙂
The bellybutton is my favorite :p

Dildo doesn’t scare me. The combination of STDs plus ignorance are causes for concern. Hepatitis A, B and C can be transmitted via saliva when eating food using the same utensils. However, only vaccines for Hepatitis A and B available currently. Herpes can also be transmitted via saliva yet no treatment available. To make matters worse, diagnostic test for herpes is not included in the routine STD health checkup. Must be specifically requested to be performed. The old saying that “make sure he is a prince before kissing the frog” should be replaced with “make sure he is STD-free before kissing the frog” 😉

Andy’s parents said nothing to him until we got married. Well, until two months after we got married. So they left it kind of late. Luckily, the state of Hawaii was more proactive and he got all the giggle-worthy films in grade school. I believe he supplemented with porn, though.

My mother was a “liberated woman” and the book “Our Bodies, Ourselves” was a staple in our house. So there was nothing in sex ed classes that was new to me. No storks, even. And when my parents had more children when I was 9, well, it was pretty easy to tell where they were coming from!

The list of my husband’s golden thoughts is endless!The stuff he comes up with..I just have no idea where he gets it from..traditional grandparents maybe?!I suspect most are old-wives tales(Chinese style). Recently, he shocked me with the fact that it wasn’t safe for babies under 3 to fly on an airplane!Excuse me, have you ever been on a place that DIDN’T HAVE BABIES ON BOARD?!Coz I haven’t. And they seemed fine…Again and again I keep catching myself thinking:’Seriously?!’

Wow, that’s some pretty insane sex-ed. I’m from America, and my father was very straightforward with me about it when I was in middle school. 😦 I wonder how they can switch from “pregnancy comes from holding hands and will kill you” to “well, now you’re married, and you won’t die.” 😛

You didn’t know that marriage is the same to holding hands and pregnancies as to ‘preserving youth of an expiring woman’? 😀 Sing once told me ‘Cousin’s wife is almost expiring, but he preserved her by marrying her’ … WTH 😀